Guillaume Briçonnet

Guillaume Briçonnet (; – 24 January 1534) was the Bishop of Meaux from 1516 until his death in 1534.

Biography Briçonnet was born into a wealthy aristocratic family about the year 1472. His father was Guillaume Briçonnet (1445–1514) who had already enjoyed a successful career in the Catholic Church. The influence that the elder Guillaume Briçonnet exercised certainly did not hinder his son and namesake from advancing up through the Church hierarchy. The younger Briçonnet was made Bishop of Lodève in 1489 and was later installed as the abbot of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1507. Briçonnet also had political connections to the royal court court and attended the consecration of King Louis XII.

In the course of these efforts however he made some enemies, particularly among the Franciscan friars within his diocese. In 1521 Briçonnet invited a number of evangelical humanists to work in the bishopric to help implement his reform program. This group of humanists became known as the Circle of Meaux and included Josse van Clichtove, Guillaume Farel, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, Martial Mazurier, Gérard Roussel, and François Vatable. The members of the Meaux circle were of different talents but they generally emphasized the study of the Bible and a return to the theology of the early Church. Its members went various ways, some of them later playing important roles in the Reformation.

After the breakup of the Circle of Meaux Briçonnet served for another nine years as bishop before his death, dismayed at the growing reaction in the Catholic Church against all attempts at internal reform that smacked of possible heresy. In retrospect Briçonnet can be grouped with contemporary Bishops of the Catholic Church such as Christoph von Utenheim and Hugo von Hohenlandenberg who attempted, unsuccessfully, to reform the Church along evangelical lines without breaking up ecclesiastical unity.

Guillaume Briçonnet died at Esmans castle on 24 January 1534. He is buried in the church of this town.

Family He was one of five children; his brother Denis became Bishop of Toulon, Lodève and Saint-Malo.